Spring Guns and Ammo

[Sugar Land]

I have been to SGA twice and have found the visit quite pleasant. The prices on the guns I was looking at were better than at my local gun store. I would imagine it depends on what kind of guns you were looking at. IMO

 

[alexrex20]

I have been going to Spring Guns and ammo to shoot for 18 months:
Good place to shoot; good lighting; good ventilation; good air conditioning
Weekdays; never had to wait for a lane:

HOWEVER:

NOT a good place to purchase a gun if you have a problem or need customer service.
Just bought my first and last gun from them: SIg 226 XL5 Short ($2500) with ported barrel; after getting the gun home and cleaning I noticed that it did not have the recoil dampening assembly shown in the instruction book; instead it had the standard recoil rod with a spring:

I took the gun back and asked them to investigate; they ran me around in circles for 6 weeks finally concluding that that I needed to ship the gun back to Germany for the correct part to be fabricated:

This seemed ridiculous:

I called Sig and spoke to a gunsmith in their custom works unit who told me that the ported 226 XL5 short does not require a recoil buffer assembly and if I did need one the part could be shipped tom me without returning the entire gun to Sig.

Spring Guns and ammo did not return numerous telephone calls and should have easily resolved this issue. It took me 15 minutes to do so for myself:

From now on I buy everything from Carters Country:

Sounds like it was your mistake, and SGA did nothing wrong.

 

[Enkidu]

Good place to shoot
Poor place to make a firearms purchase if you have a problem:
Terrible/unresponsive customer service.
Bought a $2400 new Sig 226 XL from them in June.
Had a concern about the recoil spring assembly/
after a month of e-mail with them and phone calls Spring Guns and Ammo's final response was "you will have to return the gun to Germany"
I called Sig and in 15 minutes resolved my problem:
What a waste of my time and energy:
Go there and shoot:
But....do yourself a favor
buy your guns from Carter Country where they resolve problems on the spot:

 

[alexrex20]

I'm wondering what you think constitutes good customer service.

Spring Guns & Ammo sold you a firearm that was 100% exact as it was supposed to be. Through your own ignorance and arrogance, you accused Spring Guns & Ammo of selling you a defective firearm, when in fact you were just completely misinformed.

Like I said, it was YOUR mistake, not SGA's. I'm sure they're glad that you're taking your business elsewhere.

 

[Enkidu]

My mistake....
The manual stated the gun required a recoil bushing.
Spring Guns was going to resolve this with Sig before I damaged the gun.
They either did not
or could not
but were willing to have me ship it off to Germany.
Either they do not know their product
or they do not know how to talk to Sig.
When you spend big $$$ on a gun from a dealer/ perhaps some support is acceptable/necessary/implicit/

 

[alexrex20]

Apparently YOU did not know your product.

Regardless, any issue with the firearm should be taken up with the manufacturer, not the dealer.

 

[alexrex20]

before I damaged the gun.

and we'll leave it at that...

 

[Glockster69]

Just bought my first and last gun from them: SIg 226 XL5 Short ($2500) with ported barrel;

From now on I buy everything from Carters Country:

Bought a $2400 new Sig 226 XL from them in June.

buy your guns from Carter Country where they resolve problems on the spot:

Three posts, all in this thread
A story so nice you had to tell it twice?
Work for Carter's?

 

[craigntx]

some hot babes work at sga.
also sell switchblades
hehehe

but they shut me down rapid firing a glock. totally under control.
also overpriced range fees

 

[craigntx]

Good place to shoot
Poor place to make a firearms purchase if you have a problem:
Terrible/unresponsive customer service.
Bought a $2400 new Sig 226 XL from them in June.
Had a concern about the recoil spring assembly/
after a month of e-mail with them and phone calls Spring Guns and Ammo's final response was "you will have to return the gun to Germany"
I called Sig and in 15 minutes resolved my problem:
What a waste of my time and energy:
Go there and shoot:
But....do yourself a favor
buy your guns from Carter Country where they resolve problems on the spot:

(speaking of carters)...

yet they're overpriced.
ex: $1300 colt 6920 when tomball pawn sold me one for walmart price of $1070
and $799 for the ruger 1911?
gtfo

 

[craigntx]

The additional 12 lanes are 15 yards, just enough to do a CHL class. That range is limited to handguns and .22 rimfire rifles. (I think they probably meant "any rimfire", but I'm quoting directly.)

As as aside, I had a real "WTF?" moment there yesterday. On the right-side range, the one where full-auto is allowed and the range where they send you when you rent their slidefire rifle, I heard a range officer tell a patron "No rapid fire." How can you have "no rapid fire" and full auto/slidefire at the same time? I'm confused...

yes
apparently we neglected to pay the rapid fire tax

 

[alexrex20]

some hot babes work at sga.

quoted for troof

 

[craigntx]

quoted for troof

i know i should've read the thread b4 i posted that.
i'm glad my follow foruminians concur

 

[alexrex20]

i prefer the petite blonde atriot:

 

[scap99]

From now on I buy everything from Carters Country:

You done good up to the line that said, "please butt rape me."

You had a bad experience with SGA, I get that, but I don't think that CC is a step in the right direction....just sayin'

 

[benenglish]

yes
apparently we neglected to pay the rapid fire tax

I should add a couple of things to my previous post. Thanks for reminding me.

First, the 12 new lanes are not limited to handguns and .22 rimfire. That's what I was first told but the range manager later corrected me. Same guns allowed on phase 3 as on phase 2.

Second, I looked and there's a "no rapid fire" sign in the range where the full-auto stuff is shot, as crazy as that sounds. If you want to shoot fast, I've never seen anyone have a problem as long as they go through the same informal qualification process as anyone who wants to shoot a SlideFire or full-auto. Let the range know in advance and check you out and if you're hitting well, they'll bless you to go ahead on. A word to the range safety officer on duty is all it takes. "Hey, I'd like to do some fairly quick shooting today. Would you mind watching me for a couple of mags and letting me know if you're comfortable with that?" Then actually keep your rapid fire in the black at 7 yards or so and you should get a thumbs-up and benign neglect from that RSO for the rest of your time there. Keeping your rapid fire merely on the target paper at 10 yards or less probably would earn you a "No, I don't think we'd be comfortable with that."

Given the number of folks I see out there who can't hit the paper consistently at 10 yards, I've moderated my views on the way they've begun to more tightly enforce the "no rapid fire" policy that's always existed but, for most of the time they've been in business, was ignored. Their new attitude is probably necessary if the rule is sensibly enforced (or non-enforced) as the occasion warrants. Thus far, I have not seen SGA be dicks about it and that puts them about a mile ahead of most places. Search the board. I don't remember where, but there's a story on here somewhere of a guy getting kicked off the Carter's range for rapid fire...with a Ruger No. 1!

 

[Sugar Land]

SGA was pretty fair about rapid fire. I think the sign is more of a CYA than anything else. IMO

 

[alexrex20]

Rapid fire with a Ruger No. 1? I'd pay to see that lol

 

[benenglish]

Either they do not know their product
or they do not know how to talk to Sig.
When you spend big $$$ on a gun from a dealer/ perhaps some support is acceptable/necessary/implicit/

You have a point but I'm not sure how reasonable it is.

My first instinct is to agree with you completely. Then I thought about it a bit. An expensive firearm is likely to be seen far less than common, inexpensive examples. I doubt anyone could have enough experience to know, offhand, which of the several dozen 1911-type firearms in their sales case are supposed to come with a recoil buffer and which aren't.

If your contact at SIG was correct and your version of events is correct, then there's an error in the manual that came with your pistol. No one at any gun store is going to be able to spot that unless they personally own the firearm in question.

So what it boils down to, for me, is that once I've got a gun in my hands I feel it's my duty to learn it, inside and out, and not expect a gun store clerk to be able to fill in all the blanks for me. If it had been me working at SGA, I would have made an attempt to contact SIG for you if you brought the pistol back to me but if I couldn't get an answer, I'd put the ball back in your court to contact SIG on your own. After all, SGA doesn't need to know every pistol like a factory-trained armorer but it's reasonable to expect the final owner to work toward that goal.

To me, the only unarguably valid point you make is that SGA promised to help you and then dithered about and failed to do so, even proposing a solution that would have worked but would have also deprived you unnecessarily of the use of the pistol for quite a while. That's not acceptable. Retailers shouldn't make promises they don't keep.

I once had a dealer agree with the seller to mail to my FFL a pistol I had bought online. The private seller took the pistol to his local dealer who promised to ship it to my FFL for transfer. After a week with no tracking number received and no gun showing up at my dealer, I bypassed the private seller in another state and directly called the dealer he was using for the shipment. They admitted to literally putting the pistol on a shelf until they got around to packing and shipping...and then forgetting it was there. They actually thanked me for calling and reminding them.

It sounds like that's the sort of inattention to detail, usually brought about by an unending crush of customers at the counter that need to be seen right now, that SGA displayed. That's not good but, imo, it's not a fatal mistake, merely an irritating one.

No gun store that I know of provides the kind of white-glove service we'd like to see but, frankly, I find that the level of service at SGA is distinctly better than most and I'd opine that's still true even if what they did to you is exactly as you describe. What you describe is nowhere near the egregious sort of "the customer can go to hades" attitudes found in many (if not most) gun stores.

I suggest you go in and ask for Ryan, the manager. Lay out the whole story and see if he offers to do something to make you feel better and regain your trust. I'm betting he will. It might be just a sincere apology and a couple of range passes but I feel you should at least give them a chance, with the advantage of hindsight, to try to make things more right in your eyes.

 

[alexrex20]

If your contact at SIG was correct and your version of events is correct, then there's an error in the manual that came with your pistol.

I doubt there is a different manual for the ported barrel.